Mumbai: Out of the 29 civic polls held in Maharashtra on January 15, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has achieved a historic win in 23. Among these, the BJP has also emerged as the single largest party in 19 corporations. However, the most significant victory is in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the wealthiest civic body in country with an annual budget of more than Rs 74,400 crore, and traditionally the stronghold of the Thackeray family-led old Shiv Sena for over 28 years.

The BJP made only a marginal gain in the BMC, increasing its tally from 82 seats in 2017 to 89 seats this time. Nevertheless, this win was made possible solely because of the split in the Shiv Sena. While the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena secured 65 seats, the Eknath Shinde-led Sena won 29 seats.

Shinde’s party also put up a strong performance in other traditional Sena strongholds such as Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli and Ulhasnagar. Shinde has long enjoyed a solid base in these areas and has successfully retained his influence there and the BJP is only a supporting ally in these regions and not the main player.

The BJP’s success is being directly attributed to Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who led the campaign from the front and campaigned relentlessly across the state. This election was a matter of pride for the BJP as much as it was for Uddhav Thackeray. As results started pouring in, the leadership in Delhi, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, congratulated Fadnavis and other BJP party members in the state.

Thackeray has faced several setbacks in recent years, but losing control of the maximum city is a blow he could ill afford. In this election, he even set aside differences with his cousin Raj Thackeray and contested together in Mumbai and several other municipal polls. However, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) managed only 6 seats, one less than in the 2017 polls.

Congress maintained a quiet presence with 24 seats in the BMC, down from 31 in the previous election. The loss of seven seats in the city, immediately led to a demand for accountability within the Mumbai Congress. Senior leader Bhai Jagtap called for the party’s city chief Varsha Gaikwad on moral grounds.

Congress, however, secured a win in Latur and Chandrapur, where the BJP held reigns in the past elections. In Parbhani, where the Congress had last held control over the corporation along with the undivided NCP, they once again made a comeback, but with an alliance with Thackeray’s Sena this time.

In Mumbai, Congress had ditched the other parties of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and forged an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), which after struggling to find candidates, lost on all seats it contested.

The worst performance, however, came from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, which won just one seat. Ajit Pawar’s NCP, on the other hand, secured only three seats. In 2017, before the split, the undivided NCP had 9 corporators.

Following the NCP split in July 2023, the two factions took divergent paths: Ajit Pawar aligned with the BJP and accepted the post of deputy chief minister, while Sharad Pawar’s faction joined the opposition MVA alliance. In this civic election, however, the two Pawar groups decided to forge separate alliances.

In two major civic corporations – Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad – both historically strongholds of the Pawars, the two factions suffered their worst defeats, paving the way for the BJP to retain power in these areas. In Mumbai, NCP’s performance was worse than many relatively smaller parties like AIMIM and Samajwadi Party.  

This civic election, which happened after a more than four-year delay in most districts, had very little focus on the immediate civic concerns. Both the ruling BJP and the opposition made this an ideological fight. The BJP’s manifesto had provocative mentions like Bangladeshi immigrants and how the party once in power will use artificial intelligence to “weed out” illegal immigrants from the city.

On winning too, Fadnavis claimed the win was of Hindutva and it has been in the party’s soul forever.

The Thackerays resorted to Marathi Asmita (pride) and also launched a tirade against the south Indians in the city.

The only place where the election was fought over the local concerns was Dharavi. Of the seven wards in the region, two went to Congress, and four were won by candidates of Sena (UBT). One seat was won by Shinde’s Sena, while the BJP failed to breach the constituency. The BJP anyway never managed to gain a hold in the region, which primarily comprises of Dalit Bahujan and Muslim population. The region saw close to 65% voting, much higher than rest of Mumbai, which saw an overall turnout of 52.94% voters.

In another constituency Worli, where the Thackeray-led Sena has always had a stronghold and Uddhav’s son Aditya Thackeray had contested assembly election and won, the party managed a punch once again retaining six out of seven corporators seat in the area. 

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